


To Know You Anywhere

by triedunture



Series: To Know You Anywhere [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Bottom Loki (Marvel), Coda, Flashbacks, Genderfluid Character, M/M, Mind Games, Multi, Shapeshifting, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-28
Updated: 2017-11-28
Packaged: 2019-02-07 21:15:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12849672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triedunture/pseuds/triedunture
Summary: Post-Ragnarok, when Loki appears back on the ship.A hug. A long talk. Thor shows Loki the memory of their first time from his perspective.





	To Know You Anywhere

Loki catches the piece of cut glass inches from his face and says, "I'm here"—words that, to Thor's ears, sound like the most improbable of syllables.Thor's shock seems to delight Loki, a glittering pleasure blooming in his thin smile. Two strides and Thor is upon his brother as promised, wrapping him in an embrace so painfully tight that the stopper falls from his hand. 

"Though I won't be much longer if you suffocate me." Loki smacks his hands against Thor's flanks with a wheeze of protest. "Get off."

Thor does not apologize, but he does take one step back to admire Loki's there-ness, hands resting on his very real shoulders. He'd believed his brother would find a way to survive the destruction, yes, but he had not believed his brother would show himself. It was too like Loki to stay hidden and bide time. The thought worries him, that perhaps Loki has only appeared because he had no choice. 

"Are you injured?" He manhandles his brother so he can examine him from all sides. "Did you not sustain some hurt when that demon appeared?"

"I know how to slip past demons," Loki says dryly. He allows himself to be spun around before gesturing to Thor's newly applied eye patch. "A lesson you still must learn, it seems."

"Ah." Thor touches the patch with a tinge of concern in his heart. He'd never been too vain, not compared to most Asgardians, but he does not like to see his features so altered. "Very true."

There is a breath of silence between them then, each looking upon the other with roving eyes. So much has happened in such a short period of time, and Thor has so many questions for his erstwhile brother. Not the least of which involves the moments before he awoke on Sakaar in the Hulk's chambers with a whisper of magic still haunting his mind like a half-remembered dream. Why had his brother—or someone else with magical skill—chosen to show him that memory from so long ago, when Loki had appeared to him in the night in the shape of a maiden?

"May I?" Loki asks, a hand hovering beside Thor's face. For a moment Thor imagines he is asking to peer into his brain's workings so there will be no need for words, but then he remembers that Loki is capable of some forms of healing, and he is referring to Thor's injury. 

"Several of the healers on board have already worked their skill upon it," he says, shying away out of instinct. The wound had been very tender of late.

"Then Your Highness should not fear one more." Loki gives a mocking little bow, then nods to the simple bed that stands by the wall. "If you sit, it will be easier."

They do sit, and then, finding that position too awkward to sustain, Thor resigns himself to laying on his back with his hands laced atop his stomach while Loki sits at his side. His nimble fingers carefully peel away the golden-laced patch to reveal the charred socket. 

"Are these the sort of quarters the King of Asgard now warrants?" Loki asks. "There's barely room enough to pace. How will you conduct yourself?" He is trying to distract Thor with idle barbs; that much is clear. Thor welcomes that distraction.

"It is the second-best room on the ship," he says. A faint tingling sensation radiates across his face as Loki's palm passes over it. It is not comfortable, but it does not hurt as such. "The largest, of course, has been given to the Hulk."

"Of course." Loki clicks his tongue. "Well, I hope my own will be sufficient." 

Thor suppresses a grin. Just barely. "I'm terribly sorry, brother, but there are no more rooms."

A beat. "What?"

Thor's mouth pulls into an innocent downward curve. "I suppose we could place you in the barracks with the midwives. Or perhaps with the children? There might be space enough in the livestock pen—" 

"You are not so funny as you imagine," Loki says under his breath. His hands are an inch above Thor's face now, a slow, warm honey feeling flowing from them into Thor's head. 

"Yes I am," Thor says with easy amiability. Then, more serious, "It's the truth, though. The ship has precious little space, and I did not think to set aside some for you. I thought you had gone."

"I see." Loki ignores the unspoken question— _why are you here, brother?_ —and instead shrugs. "Perhaps these should be my quarters, and you can sleep with the livestock." 

"Oh, _can_ I?" Thor tips his head back to glare up at Loki, but his brother holds his face between his palms to keep him still. 

"I'm working," he hisses. 

Thor indulges Loki by going slack and quiet, letting him weave his spells though they both know there is not much else to be done about Thor's missing eye; once Death takes something, it is gone forever. 

It is a long time before Loki admits defeat in his fashion. "You're lucky it was only the one," he sighs, his hands falling away. He does not meet Thor's gaze as he leans back against the wall, his legs stretched out in front of him, black boots dangling off the edge of the mattress. Thor replaces his eye patch, shifts a bit so they are in parallel, leaning close, shoulders touching. He thinks back to the days when they were children, sharing a bed very much in this fashion, sprawled out beside each other. They would natter on without a real care in the world, learning different braids on each other's hair, and staying awake— against their mother's orders—long after their candle had burned out.

"The common folk might not appreciate my presence on the ship," Loki says after a short time spent in silence. "I don't wish to disturb them, not after all they've been through. I should go."

Thor swallows a bark of laughter. It's their exchange in that elevator all over again. Here is Loki, hurt that there is no place for him and too proud to ask for one. Betting—hoping, really—that Thor will fall for his self-sacrificing gesture and make him promises that Loki will use as currency between them.

Thor understands this now about his brother, for whom plain speaking and honest sentiment are worthless. It's the game that Loki lives by—to always be doing the exact opposite of what is expected, to keep others wondering at his intent when the intent never actually wavers. The game itself is the only goal.

There was a time when Thor refused to play. Now he thinks he's more adept at the language Loki speaks, and so he replies with forced solemnity, "Let me save us the time it would take for this argument to run its course: I would say, 'No, Loki, you are mistaken. Asgard owes you a debt. You helped save our people from extinction.' And then you would say—" Here Thor pitches his voice into a nasal growl. "'I brought on the destruction of our world. The whispers and stories and songs will name me a horrible villain.' And I'll say, 'No, don't be ridiculous, you're a hero.' And you will say, 'No I'm not,' and then to prove it you might stab me or steal all of the supplies on this ship and disappear. And then _I_ will—"

"Is this pantomime really necessary?" Loki demands with heat in his voice.

"Just a moment. Then _I_ will curse your name and vow to hunt you down, and to be very plain, brother, I am tired of going round and round with you. After all that's happened, I don't think a reprieve is too much to ask. If only a moment's."

Loki will never look chastened, but he does seem to glance away as if embarrassed to have Thor so thoroughly know him and his nature. After a moment, he murmurs, "I didn't realize I'd become so predictable. Abhorrent, really."

Thor claps a palm to Loki's tense thigh and pats it a few times in an attempt at comfort. "At any rate, you're welcome to stay, you know."

Loki regards him with not a little haughtiness. "Where, exactly, if there is no room for me?"

The corner of Thor's mouth twitches with gentle humor as he speaks. "I meant for you to remain here, with me. In my quarters."

He takes great interest in Loki's reaction and he is not disappointed. Loki's face suffuses with high color, and he picks at the thin coverlet on the little bed. Being caught off guard is a delightful look on him. Thor hopes to see it more often.

"Ah," Loki says slowly. "So I won't need to bed down with the goats after all?"

"Not unless you'd prefer them."

Loki bobs his head from side to side as if weighing his options. "I might find their conversation an improvement." 

Thor does laugh then, full-throated and belly-deep. He doesn't mean to, but these last few days have been so long and so full of sorrow, and Loki is, once more, the embodiment of the opposite. Thor laughs so hard that his remaining eye squeezes shut, and when he opens it again, he finds Loki has changed.

His brother has again taken the form of that dreamt-of fairy maid, sitting with dainty grace at the foot of the bed facing away, clad in wisps of green and gold that seem more mist than raiment. On her head rests a thin circlet of silver whorls, chased with patterns of leaves. Loki seems to sense Thor's attention in the confused silence, and looks back at him over a pearl-white shoulder, long inky hair spilling. Her ice-blue eyes take in Thor, the unasked question that furrows his brow, and Loki says in a voice that is only a little softer than usual, "Did I misread you so badly?" That long dark hair is tucked behind a pale ear with a twitch of fingers which could by turns be calculating or wracked with nerves. Thor wonders which it truly is now. "Did you not mean for me to stay here in your quarters for...this?"

Thor sits up, slowly, as if Loki will run away at any moment. Like she did when they were young, when the forests of Asgard still stood in the shadows of great mountains. He had not expected Loki to offer such a thing now, and so he hadn't thought to ask. Not when for years and years Loki had refused to broach the subject of that time in the night-cloaked valley, when they had been each other's first love. 

"Loki," he says, and then can't say anything further. 

A small smirk passes over Loki's face, as beautiful in this form as the other. She takes Thor's silence as shock of another kind. "I knew it. You didn't know. Not for sure, not like you said."

"So that was you? In Sakaar, I mean?" Thor leans forward to examine her face. It's such a perfect likeness of Loki's usual one, only a little changed. They're older now, for one thing, and Loki's feminine shape seems to have sharpened into a regal bearing. "Showing me that memory. Why?"

The maiden Loki lets fly a glittering laugh. "A mere diversion while I waited for your oafish self to rouse." 

This is a lie—Thor knows it by the cant of Loki's head and the shift of those arctic eyes. But he allows it to pass; likely the real reason is one she will never admit: base nostalgia or simpering feeling. Nothing in any of the realms would force her to say so. 

"I knew the entire time, of course. Well, a great deal of the time," Thor says. "And I will tell you now what I wish I had had the courage to tell you then." Loki's eyes, long-lashed, dart to him and seem to plead for something, perhaps for Thor to not ruin this game so soon. But instead Thor takes Loki's small, thin hand in his, turning it over to admire its fineness, and says, "You don't need to appear as a woman to please me."

Loki's eyes cloud in confusion for just a moment before hardening into something war-ready. She yanks her hand from Thor's grasp. "Who says this is to please _you_?"

Thor bites down on a groan. Must Loki always be so obstinate? "I only meant, if you wished to return to your natural form—" 

"My _natural_ form? _Natural_?" Loki, now incensed, rises to small slippered feet and stands over the bed, somehow able to project majesty from such a tiny personage. "Pray tell me, what does that form look like?"

Thor frowns, thinking this must be some sort of trick but unable to understand its meaning. "The way you always appear. Not a glamor or a spell, but the way you were born."

The moment the word leave his mouth, he realizes his error. Loki's face, soft and lovely, turns hard and snarling. 

"The way I was born," Loki says. The fairy maid's shape falls away before Thor's gaze. Pale skin is overtaken by a fierce, cold blue. Loki grows in height and girth until he is at least twice Thor's size. His clothes turn into a short leather loincloth, and his arms and head are draped in thin golden chains that echo the shape of his scars. He towers over the little bed, over Thor, crowded close by the low ceiling of the room. His fangs peek out from his thin blue lips, and the frigid puff of his Frost Giant's breath washes over Thor's face. Fingers tipped with talons the size of swords pin Thor upon the mattress.

"Is this natural enough for you, brother?" Loki growls.

"Ah." Thor struggles for breath under the solid weight of Loki's palm. He'd known that some magic must have turned Loki from a Jotun pup to an Asgardian babe, but he'd never troubled himself to think what Loki would have looked like if he'd never been taken by Odin. Clearly, Loki has thought about it a great deal.

But if his brother means to frighten him with such theatrics, he's bound to be disappointed. 

"It is a fine shape," Thor says as evenly as he can with the weight on his chest. "My only concern would be how to give you such pleasure as I know you enjoy." He wriggles a hand free and places it atop Loki's massive thumb, petting the cool skin there. "With your cleverness, I'm sure we could manage." 

Loki's eyes, now a furious shade of orange, narrow at Thor. "You think this a time for jests?"

"It is no jest." Thor dips his head and presses a kiss to one of Loki's knuckles. "You are still welcome to stay here with me. And if this is the form you prefer, so be it."

The Frost Giant that is Loki looming above him stills his ragged panting, the rage seeping from his face. "You do not mean that," he intones. "You could not."

Loki lifts his hand away and Thor takes it as an opportunity to breathe deep and cross his arms under his head for a pillow. The ease of his posture seems to confuse Loki even more, and he smiles. "After all that's happened, brother," he says, "when will you understand? I do not care what shape you're wearing. I'd know you anywhere." 

It is a calculated risk, to goad Loki in such a manner, for there is nothing Thor's brother likes less than being told he is not the indecipherable tangle he thinks he is. 

For his efforts, Thor gets to see that huge jaw work as if searching for a suitable retort and then, when Loki cannot find one, he disappears. Goes straight from a towering, grunting Frost Giant to thin air in a blink of an eye.

"Loki?" Thor bolts upright and for a long moment he blinks at empty space Loki has left behind. "Damn," he mutters, rubbing his one good eye with his fingertips. That wasn't how it should have gone. Where is Loki now? Already stealing an escape pod or something? Flying among the stars?

Thor swings his legs over the edge of the bed and prepares to stand, to face the rest of the night, no, the rest of the journey without his brother. Just when he thinks he is getting through to the absolute brat—

Looking down at the floor, Thor perceives a thin, dark shape slithering past his boot until it disappears under the bed. The relief nearly knocks him backward. "Loki," he says with a shake of his head, "you know how much I like snakes."

He kneels on the floor to peer under the low bed. Loki sits there in the shadows, clothed in scales of green and gold with diamonds of black running down his spine. He's quite large and manages to look very poisonous coiled there, red tongue flickering in Thor's direction.

"Do you know me, really?" Loki asks though of course his lips do not form the words; he speaks into Thor's mind, or perhaps through the air. "What do you think you know?"

Thor goes flat on his belly to better see his snake-brother. His chin rests on the backs of his hands as he regards Loki with a small smile. "I know that you know that I'm definitely going to pick you up. Whether you'll take it as an opportunity to attack me like you did when we were children, I'm not sure." He thinks for a moment. "I don't think you will. It lacks surprise. No fun in that. And so—" He reaches a hand under the bed with forced steadiness; there is still a chance Loki will sink his fangs into the meat of his palm but he refuses to be cowed by such a thing. 

The gamble pays off. Thor grabs hold of Loki and drags him back into the light, a tightly wound ball cupped against Thor's chest. He stands with his prize and flops back onto the bed, chuckling. 

"If you wanted to be held, you could just ask," he says. 

Loki winds himself around Thor's arm and slips upward until he's draped about his shoulders. "You're a fool," Loki hisses. His tongue flicks at the shell of Thor's ear. "I could strangle the life out of you right here, and then where would our people be? Without their King, they are lost." As if to prove his point, he wraps around Thor's neck and _squeezes_ , just enough to make the pulse leap in his throat. 

But Thor won't allow panic to overtake him now. After all, Loki called the people _theirs_ , which is encouraging. Thor merely lifts a hand and, instead of attempting to pry Loki away, smooths his fingertips down that long, sinewy body. 

"Would you not take my place if I was killed?" Thor says with mock innocence. "No, I suppose not. Being the King of a homeless, wandering people would not interest you. Why, I don't believe there's a single grape to be had on this entire ship." 

Loki releases his hold and, after a moment, slides away to coil tightly on the bedsheets beside Thor. He tucks his serpent's nose into the center and stays there, eyes hidden. Thor has never known a snake to pout, and yet this one does.

"Which is not to say," Thor continues while petting at the glistening scales, "that you would not be a good ruler. Heimdall tells me you accomplished a great many things while you had the throne. That in certain bureaucratic instances, you acted with a wisdom that belied your years."

Nothing but serpentine silence answers him. 

"Which is why," Thor says, then stops. "Loki, I wish you would look at me." He picks up the snake that is his brother and holds him at eye level until Loki unwinds a bit and looks at Thor, eyes all glittering blackness. 

Thor nods. "My thanks. As I was saying— Which is why I would ask you to be my advisor." 

"Your _what_?" Loki rears back so violently that Thor is forced to drop him. He falls to the bed and instantly is transformed back into a woman, though her long midnight hair is now a wild tangle and her gauzy robes are slipping down her pale shoulders. "You want me to advise you?" she gasps. "Surely you're joking."

"I am not." Thor fights the frisson of irritation that passes through him at these words. He'd thought that this offer would please Loki in all respects. Why is it not at last welcome? "I have considered this very carefully."

"Thor, really." She pulls at the fabric slipping down her arm so that her shoulder is again covered. "You're saying you want me in a position where I give you advice? As if you will _listen_ to it!?"

"I will!" Thor insists. 

"You're not even listening to me now," Loki says, and it is one of the few times in their lives that Thor can see, from the naked fear in those flashing eyes, that Loki has said something very vital, something that was not meant to be spoken aloud. If the words had been birds, Loki would be right now snatching them from the air and stuffing them back into the cage of her ribs, for they flew directly from the heart. 

Thor reaches for her hand on the coverlet even as she turns from him. "I do not understand," he says. "What are you saying? What do I not hear?"

"Nothing. Leave me be," she says. 

Thor's mind races through their entire conversation up to this point: the embrace, the fairy maid's return, the icy Giant, the slippery snake, and now the beautiful lady again. Is it supposed to mean something beyond Loki's usual tricks? 

Thor does not touch her trembling shoulder, though he wants to very badly. He only moves closer and says, "I told you. You do not need to dazzle me with your fantastic shapes. I am content with the real Loki by my side." 

Loki shudders as if a knife has been slipped into her spine. "Real," she intones. "That's the problem, you see." 

"I don't see." He touches her face and gently turns it so their eyes meet again. Loki's are dark with distress. "Will you show me what you mean?" 

"I've been showing you." She gestures helplessly to the small room around them. "Man. Woman. Beast. I'm not actually—" She sighs. Shuts her bright eyes. "It's not me. None of it is. There is no real one. I'm nothing."

Thor is stunned into silence. For all his brother's flagrant ego, the massive self-confidence, all the shining glory Loki seems to show the world, this was how she saw herself? 

No. It would not stand. "Loki." His fingers slip into that black hair, and he tugs, just enough so that their foreheads are brought together and they are sharing the same breaths. "Loki, listen to me." Thor closes his eye and holds her to him. "You are everything."

"No." Her head shakes side to side. "No, you don't—"

"I understand now," Thor says. "You're neither man nor woman, not Jotun nor Asgardian, small or large. You are simply yourself, without a boundary or name, except that you are my brother, and you are loved. Loki, I know you when I see you."

"That's not true." She is pushing him away with one hand while somehow pulling him closer with the other, and if that is not Loki distilled Thor is not sure what is.

He speaks into her soft hair. "I knew you in those woods—" 

"Like Hel you did." 

"And I can prove it to you if you like. Come on." Thor shifts back, takes Loki's hand and places it upon his forehead. "The Valkyrie told me you used magic to watch her memories. Go ahead. See what I saw when we were young, and you first came to me dressed in this shape." 

"I was there," Loki says. "I know what we did. What I allowed you to do to me." There is shame in her crystalline voice, and Thor would wring it out if he could. 

"Please," he says, "let me prove you wrong." His thumb brushes at her flushed cheek. "You know I so love doing that." There is a tinge of affection in the angry glare she throws at him, and so Thor pushes his luck further, adding, "Or you can prove me wrong, which I know is your very favorite thing in the world."

"Fine," she says, and presses her hand to Thor's head and then—

Shadow. Light. All moves as if in a dream.

Footsteps on fallen leaves. A hunter's moon heavy in the sky. Thor turns his head at the sound of something in the brush. His hair is golden, just brushing his shoulders, braids swinging. 

A flash of moonlight, and he sees Loki. It is a woman, but it is also Loki. She looks at him as Loki does, a challenge in her eyes. 

But it cannot be Loki, his mind tells him. Can it? 

They are running before he can think. In the memory, they move like ghosts, nearly frozen, caught in the amber of time. Thor watches the maiden's feet as she leaps from stone to stone in a frothing river, and he thinks that is how his brother also moves. How strange.

Thor remembers the perfection of her laugh, the fall of her hair, the soft feel of it between his fingers. Her scent is like the morning after a bonfire, ash lingering lightly amid the dew. It is the same smell he has found on his brother, a consequence of late nights spent creating tinctures in his close-walled workshop. 

When the maiden stops and turns to him, Thor knows. He has seen those same lips part with unasked questions a thousand times. He knows it can only be Loki. No other could cause in him this feeling.

Their lovemaking is fragmented like stained glass. Here, the shape of Loki's bare hip and Thor's hand upon it. And now here, the drag of Loki's teeth along his shoulder as Thor touches the wetness within her with questing fingers. Then back to the moment before, when in his haste Thor has ripped the laces on his breeches and Loki had smirked up at him and he _knew_ all over again who this was. 

He remembers with vivid, striking clarity, the act of being inside Loki and seeing a piece of a leaf tangled in her hair, and extracting it with great care though it caused him to falter in his movements. For some reason, he remembers this but not their shared pleasure, how they found their end despite their inexperienced bodies, bowstring-taut with nerves. He only remembers thinking with dizzying wonder that this is his brother, and he loves her unabashedly. 

And then, the most important piece of memory, what he truly needs to share with Loki: the following morning, waking alone in the damp grass on the hillside with his clothes for a pillow, searching the valley for footprints, for a scrap of cloth, for any sign of Loki as the suns rise in the sky. Then, appearing back at the palace, seeking out his brother, finding him in the usual place at the workbench in his usual skin. No love bites decorate his neck, no blushes stain his cheek, no proof that this is his lover. There is a hum of words between them, unremembered and unnecessary, for Thor is waiting for words that would never come. Finally he tells Loki about his encounter with the beautiful fairy-maid and receives nothing but a pitying look in return. 

"You must have been deep in your cups last night, brother," he had said, and Thor's heart is sundered. Seeing it play out again in the slowest of movements hurts just as much as the first time.

For his part, Thor is rather glad they are sharing this through magic. He's not sure he has the words for what happens next, nor the fortitude to say them.

He begs for Loki's help in finding his lost love, but is really begging for Loki to return his affections. But he does not receive the answer he waits upon, and so in time, allows Loki to keep his secret, just as Thor keeps his own. This happens weeks later, but of course memory is its own animal and instead shows a tableau that, while not strictly based in fact, shows Thor's own truth: one last glance over his shoulder at his brother, hunched over his work, his back a bowed curve, ignoring Thor's broken heart as it leaves his sphere, and taking the time to tuck a lock of black hair behind his ear as he ponders a more worthwhile problem. That is the image in Thor's mind as he resolves to let the matter be. 

It is the emblem that is stamped upon his greatest regret. 

The memory dissolves into garish, swiftly moving reality as Thor opens his eye.

Loki sits before him, staring at nothing over Thor's shoulder with his hands palm-up in his lap. And it is Loki, his brother, in the shape he grew up with and fought beside. Not the maiden, not the giant, not the snake, though those are all Loki as well; Thor sees that now. 

"That is not how I remember it," Loki says at last, his eyes still not meeting Thor's. "You never showed me any sign that you— How was I to know—?" 

"I don't blame you," Thor says but Loki is not listening.

"Why didn't you try to explain it to me? Did you really have to leave when—?" 

"I don't blame you, Loki," he repeats. 

"Well, I certainly blame you," Loki returns hotly. "You absolute—" He doesn't finish the thought, only hooks his fingers into Thor's chestplate and yanks him forward with hidden strength. Thor allows Loki to kiss him until they cannot breathe, and then, gasping for air, delivers kisses to his brother's thrumming throat. 

"So you will stay?" Thor asks. 

"Yes," Loki murmurs to the crown of his head.

"And you will act as my advisor?"

"Yes." A groan in his ear.

"And you will not try to convince me any longer that you are unworthy of these things?"

"That is not what I think at all," Loki huffs against Thor's neck.

"If you insist. I'd rather not fight over it just now," Thor says, and flips them so that he has Loki laid out beneath him. His fingers find and undo three of the buckles of Loki's leathers before he realizes that his brother has stilled under his touch, his kisses still answering Thor's but slower, more hesitant. Thor sits back, straddling Loki's hips, and regards him closely. "Does something else stay your hand in this?"

"It doesn't seem to bother you at all," Loki says quietly, his eyes finding Thor. "The fact that we are brothers in all but blood."

"No." Thor shrugs. "Should it?"

"I thought it would." Loki's gaze goes far away, past the walls of their little room. "It bothered me terribly." 

Thor takes the opportunity to rid himself of his chestplate and half-cape, tossing them to the floor in a heap. "And now?" Thor asks. He returns his attention to Loki and finds him transfixed by Thor's bared skin. 

"Well, the world did end." Loki's ingenious hands roam up Thor's bronzed torso. "Perhaps there's no need to worry about such things any longer."

Thor grins as he leans down to cover Loki, to gift him a kiss anew. He will not tell Loki what he's thinking—that this is how he knows his brother loves him, though he might never say it aloud: because Loki stood with him at the end of the world and thought it a fine place to be. He hadn't run. He did not falter. He was what Thor needed—what their people needed—a shining, sleek knife's edge, fighting as their home burned.

He is what Thor needs still. 

Their garments prove a challenge. Loki is wrapped in layers of leather and silk, full of complicated fasteners and hidden catches. Perhaps this is part of his never-ending game; only the cleverest of lovers can claim him. Thor smiles at the thought as he rids his brother of one more damnable vestment.

"Something amusing?" Loki asks.

"I was just thinking how beautiful you are." Thor hopes another kiss will distract him, and it does for a moment. 

Then Loki peers up at him with distrustful eyes, though they are not so icy any longer. "One would hope your lovemaking has improved since you were a virginal youth," he says, "but so far, I am not impressed." 

Thor decides he would rather be kind than clever, and he gives up on Loki's clothing so that he might move backward on the bed, all the while dragging down Loki's breeches with him. Loki, lying there half-dressed, watches him with great interest. 

"I hope to show you a thing or two that will change your outlook," Thor says, looking up the length of that pale body with a sunny grin. Then, ducking his head low, he takes Loki in his mouth, holding fast to his legs as they threaten to crush his head like a vise. He cannot help but laugh as he suckles; it's infinitely rewarding to know that Loki's body cannot lie as easily as his tongue. 

And the noises he makes! It's as if he wishes to remain silent but, in biting his tongue, only serves to let slip the most strangled, desperate cries from his lips. His head tosses against the pillow with a violent thud, and Thor takes this as a great victory.

"Do you enjoy it, then?" He nips at the soft skin on the inside of a white thigh. "It's difficult to tell." Then he dives back down to meet Loki's cock, which is pink and wet, straining against his tongue. He sinks down, his nose brushing dark curls that smell of bonfires and dawn. The same scent that drove him near to madness all those years before. He nuzzles into it, breathing it in with huge lungfuls as he sucks. 

"Must you drool so much?" Loki shoots back at him, but the tremor in his voice takes the sting from the words. 

Thor pulls off to take stock of his work. Loki's cock is drenched in spittle and slick, and he gives it a few pulls, enough to make Loki arch off the bed. "I think I do," he says with extreme satisfaction at the picture his brother makes. 

"Stop talking." Loki grabs for his hair, panting all the while. 

Thor merely smiles and bats his hands away, then, when they return, he gathers Loki's wrists in one of his hands and wags a finger up at him. "Now, now," he says. "I allowed you to work your skill on my eye. Will you allow me to work mine on your prick?" 

Loki groans, his eyes flashing points of ice. "Yes, damn you."

"Good." Thor returns to his ministrations with renewed determination, keeping hold of Loki's hands, which spasm and leap in his grip like sparrows wishing to escape their confinement. Thor hopes to hear his brother beg, but his next words are something else, though just as unusual. 

"No more," Loki gasps out. His whole body seems to be employed in a struggle to wriggle away from Thor's mouth. "Stop, you must stop."

Thor stops. He looks up. "What's wrong?"

"I'll come off if you keep that up." Loki tips his chin at his lap. "And I was rather hoping—" Here he looks away, and if the coyness is a ploy, Thor will allow it, if only for the chance to see that flush painted across Loki's face. "I wanted to find my end with you inside me."

"Inside you?" Thor's face falls. "I do not have anything to ease the way. Perhaps we should only—"

"Hold on. This is a Sakaarian vessel. What is this, the first officer's quarters, you said?" Loki lifts his hand and runs it lightly along the wall beside the bed. Then, seeing some invisible point, he raps his knuckles on it and is rewarded with a panel opening to display an array of bottles. Loki selects one with a small laugh. "I will give them this. Sakaarians are always prepared." He catches sight of Thor's expression, which surely betrays his surprise, and frowns. "Oh come now. Do not tell me you thought me completely chaste." 

"I knew you'd taken lovers," Thor says, "but I did not know one had been on Sakaar."

Loki's face scrunches. "Ehhhhhh, a sight more than one, brother." He sits up, cock painting Thor's stomach with cool wetness as he moves closer. He presses the bottle into Thor's hand and says into his ear, "Are you very jealous?" 

He is, but it would do no good to give Loki the answer he expects. So Thor says, "No. You are not some bauble for me to own," even as his arms wind around Loki's back. "You own yourself. I love that about you."

Loki hesitates then, his eyes narrowing in thought. "I thought you were killed," he says. 

That gives Thor pause. "What?"

"When I fell on Sakaar. I thought Hela must have murdered you because I was alone, and I could not find you." He looks away, a chagrined laugh on his lips. "It didn't occur to me, the time difference."

Thor does not know what to say to that. It might be as near to a confession of love that he might ever get from Loki, to hear that he'd sought out Thor and, not finding him, sought out others to share his bed. 

He decides to say nothing, but kisses Loki again and holds him very close.

The oil that Loki discovered does ease the way. Thor works him open thoroughly, with great concern for his comfort, perhaps a bit too much. After a while Loki kicks Thor in the side with his heel and says, "If you don't put that cock of yours to some sort of use right this moment, I swear to all that is holy, I will crash this ship into the nearest flying rock!"

After much bickering they agree to lay on their sides, face to face. It is a compromise between two extremes, for of course Loki wants Thor to have him from behind while Thor rather likes the idea of Loki riding him. Loki grumbles as Thor arranges them and lifts Loki's leg to make room for his cock. 

"I still don't see why I cannot— Ah!" He curls against Thor's chest, now held close in Thor's arms as Thor enters him. 

"Is it too much?" Thor asks. Their faces are so close, he's sure not even a mote of dust can come between them. Loki's expression seems to waver between agony and delight, and does not serve as an answer to Thor's question. "Loki? Shall I cease—?"

"No, don't you dare." Loki's eyes fly open and Thor sees they've turned a most vibrant gold. "Verdandi's tits, you're big."

Thor resists the urge to preen and fails quite badly. His grin could power a star. "Listen to that tongue, so uncouth." He tsks. Moves a fraction deeper. Pets Loki's sweat-soaked hair as he cries out once more, his face pressed against Thor's heart. 

It should be strange, being in bed with his brother, but Thor finds it very like the first time when they were young and driven by some powerful instinct they did not yet understand. They move at first a bit ungainly, but in time they fall into a steady beat, meeting each other thrust for thrust. 

Loki does not seem to know where to look. His eyes dart in turns to Thor's face, then down at where they're joined, then up at the ceiling, then squeezed shut. Thor is happy to watch him without looking away. Loki's throat works like he is trying to form the correct words, and Thor waits patiently to hear him. 

When Loki finally speaks, it is with eyes downcast. "It might not be such a hardship, being owned by you." He presses closer, fucking himself harder on Thor's prick. "In a certain way. Do you understand what I mean?"

"Oh, Loki." Thor smiles. "I understand you perfectly." He clutches his brother tight to him, rolls them over while joined, finds the floor with his thankfully steady feet, and stands, holding Loki aloft, still impaled on his cock. The show of brute strength seems to thrill Loki, though he tries to hide the admiration that blooms in his eyes. 

"Well, don't just stand there," he snaps. 

Thor ignores him, instead taking the time to step out of his breeches, which were still caught around one ankle, and finally rids Loki of the last of his green silk undershirts. Then, bouncing Loki experimentally, he says, "Do you know what I plan to do with you?" 

Loki, struggling to contain his sounds of pleasure, does not answer. His lip is caught between his teeth in a way that is very distracting. But Thor perseveres.

"Let me show you," he says. 

He walks them, shakily, the few steps it takes to reach the large picture window that looks out upon a field of stars. Loki holds tight to his shoulders but does spare a curious glance to the glass. 

"Down you go," Thor murmurs, and with as much gentleness as he can muster, he lifts Loki off his cock and sets him down to stand before him, wobbling only slightly. 

Loki looks unhappy to be empty after so long being filled, and tosses Thor quite the nasty glare. "Why have you stopped?" he demands. 

Thor gestures to the window. "Hands," is all he says. 

Loki wrinkles his nose. "Hands? Don't be so mysterious, brother. It doesn't become you." 

"Loki." Thor takes up his brother's thin wrists in a firm grip and guides them up to the glass. "Hands." 

Loki blinks but places his palms on the window, even stays there when Thor's own hands fall away. "All right," he mutters. "And now?" 

"Closer," Thor says. This time he does nothing, only waits until Loki takes a step nearer to the glass, then another and another until he's pressed flush against it. 

"It's cold," he says faintly, his cheek flat on the pane. 

Thor crowds up behind him, using one hand to guide his cock into Loki's wet hole. The other cups the side of Loki's head, fingers tangling in his black hair, and pins him against the window. But for thin glass separating them from the blackness, they are among the heavens, nothing but cosmic beauty as far as the eye can see. 

"Oh," Loki sighs, and stays as still as the woods on a windless night. Thor fucks into him over and over, no rush, all the time in the universe. Thor lets go of his cock and touches Loki's hip, a silent request for access. Loki understands, moves just enough for Thor to slip his hand between the glass and Loki's cock, which he strokes in an unhurried rhythm. They are sweating with their exertions, breath misting on the windowpane. 

"Warm enough now?" Thor asks in Loki's ear, and gets a shiver in reply. He sees that a strand of Loki's hair has stuck to his brother's lower lip, which is pink and wet, and he takes his time brushing the hair back into place behind Loki's ear. "You are lovely," he says. The stars wheel by but Thor does not bother with them. Loki is the only sight he sees. 

"Please. Thor, please," Loki begs. It's just as sweet a sound as Thor imagined. "I need you to finish me off."

"So presumptuous." Thor brushes aside the dark hair and licks at the nape of his neck. "As if your pleasure matters. You exist to service your King, you know."

"Thor!"

A chuckle muffled in Loki's shoulder. He can't help it; Loki sounds so scandalized. "All right, come here then." 

He turns Loki around and lets him climb the tree of his body, lithe leg hooked about his hip, arms reaching to twine around his neck. Thor sits on a small stool next to the cabin's tiny desk with a lapful of Loki. And he has Loki ride him while he watches the shadows of pleasure race across his brother's face. He wants very much to see those eyes again, deeply golden, and so he takes Loki's chin in his hand and asks to see them. 

"Look at me," he says. "Where are you?"

Loki blinks at him, lips parted. "I am here."

"Brother," Thor says, and kisses him. He feels Loki's release hot against his stomach, and in a moment's time he is filling Loki with his own seed. 

The air is humid in the little room as they prepare for sleep. Loki seems resplendent in the aftermath of their lovemaking, wonderfully disheveled, hair all askew and curling at the tips, pale skin flushed, chest heaving, chasing after the breath he's lost. Thor lays him on their bed and makes a clumsy job of trying to wipe him clean with the edge of the coverlet. 

"Where are your baths?" Loki asks in a tired murmur. He turns his head into a pillow, nuzzling there. "I have half a mind to wash myself before attempting sleep."

Thor pulls a face. "I'm afraid I do not have baths."

A single eye, now it's usual pale blue, cracks open to regard him. "What do you mean?"

"The quarters do not have their own baths. There is a communal washing room at the end of the hall. The water comes out in a sort of mist. But if you wish to make use of it—"

"Communal?" Loki spits out. "Are you being serious?"

"Very. And if you'd like—" Thor stretches out beside Loki on the bed, undoing all his work by pressing close and transferring most of Loki's release onto his own stomach, much to his vocal dismay, "—I could accompany you, wash your hair for you, perhaps braid it before you sleep as I did when we were small."

"You always made a mess of it. They never stayed," Loki grumbles. "And anyway, I'm not washing in front of everyone else aboard this ship." 

"Then I worry what you will smell like in a few day's time." Thor adopts a thoughtful frown. "Perhaps it's best that you stay hidden away in our rooms. You could stay abed all day, and I would come by when I had a free moment to make use of you." He pinches Loki's leg; it's a tease, but Loki looks very red in the face at the suggestion.

"You think yourself so very funny," he says as he rests his head on Thor's chest and closes his eyes. 

"I do." Thor kisses his hair. The room's lights dim in artificial night. There are no birds or insects calling, but Thor listens to the hum of the ship's engines and Loki's breathing, and he is happy. "I am glad you're here, brother," he says softly into the dark.

Loki doesn't answer, but moves closer, his hands curling atop Thor's ribs, his breath a cool wind on his skin. No words, though Thor can hear him plainly. They sleep like that, and dream of green forests.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know????


End file.
